US bill proposes 21st-century privateers to take on cybercrime

The proposed bill included a list of targetable offenses, including the theft of cryptocurrencies, ransomware attacks, and pig butchering scams.

Arizona lawmaker David Schweikert introduced “The Scam Farms Marque and Reprisal Authorization Act of 2025” in August, which proposes neo-privateers — state-sanctioned pirates — to combat cybercriminals engaged in threats against the United States.

The bill authorizes the US president to issue letters of marque to “privately armed and equipped persons” contracted by the government to “employ all means reasonably necessary” to seize property and detain or “punish” cybercriminals deemed a threat by the president.

These threats include crypto theft, pig butchering scams, ransomware attacks, identity theft, accessing computers without authorization to gather sensitive personal or classified information, online password trafficking, and compromising computers with malicious code. The bill read:

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